Assessing the performance of air cleaning devices – A full-scale test method

Activated carbon filters have been used for purification of air and water in industrial applications. However, these technologies have not been applied to the non-industrial built environment in general and there is no standard to quantify or to classify the performance of these systems for in-duct mechanical system application. The development of a standard test procedure is a very timely effort, since it would create a benchmark for evaluating the contaminant reduction of these systems. A full-scale test facility was designed and constructed to investigate the removal effectiveness of commercial gas-phase air cleaning devices. The test rig was verified by conducting the system pre-qualification tests. These series of tests were designed to quantitatively verify the reliability of the test rig for gas filter application. These tests include air tightness, velocity uniformity, uniform dispersion of challenge contaminants, temperature and humidity control. This paper first describes the experimental set-up for testing of in-duct air cleaner systems and its verification, and then presents the experimental results of four different kinds of commercial gaseous filters.